WetLand: a documentary

“WetLand is the name of a collaborative artwork by Mary Mattingly (marymattingly.com) consisting of a floating environmental sculpture which Mary and other artists created, and lived in, in 2014 in the Delaware River at Philadelphia. The work continues Mary’s interests in the relationship between a changing environment (due at least in part to global warming) and the ways human culture can evolve to meet the emerging environmental challenges. Water features prominently in her thinking. Wetlands are particularly of interest because they once surrounded virtually all seacoast urban spaces, but have been largely eliminated, with little regard for their ecological role and great value to the quality of life on both river and adjacent land. In wetlands, many natural and human needs collide. WetLand as a work of art explores some of these through imagination and, simultaneously, immersion in the gritty realities of life, where sustainability and survival are manifest concerns. The video started purely as documentation of the project and was created by volunteers with no outside funding. This short documentary video is presented as a work in progress.”